LIFF 2010: ZEBRAMAN 2 review

Sometimes
Takashi Miike's freewheeling imagination spits out something
glorious; profane, demented, moving or profound. Sometimes it grinds
to a halt, jammed up with abortive experiments like his Masters of
Horror entry Imprint and unfortunately, Zebraman 2 is another one of
these. It could only have come from Miike - it's shot through with
the kind of inspired, childlike madness only he could deliver - but
it's also a bloated, directionless mess of a movie, fun while you're
forcing it down but liable to leave you wondering why you bothered
afterwards.

It
starts not long after the first film, where everyman schoolteacher
Ichikawa (Shou Aikawa) transformed into the titular superhero to save
the world from destructive, body-snatching little green men. He's
world famous, but it's taken its toll, with his wife and friends
shunning him now he's pursued by fans and news crews round the clock.
Then abruptly he wakes up more than a decade into the future to find
Tokyo transformed into a hideous totalitarian regime modelled on a
twisted interpretation of his alter ego - only he's got no memory
of who might have been responsible, or even that he used to be
Zebraman.

So
what's going on? Everything and nothing, basically. Despite the
ridiculous premise Zebraman 2's backstory does have a strange logic,
of sorts, and numerous callbacks to the first film both to give a
little buzz to those who watched it and explain proceedings to those
who didn't. Ichikawa's pupils have grown up, with Ichiba (Naoki
Tanaka) now a doctor leading the resistance against the evil mayor
lording it over the city. Not all of the little green men have been
eradicated. And the new Zebra Queen (Riisa Naka, having the time of her life) acting as the
figurehead for the regime has more of a connection to Zebraman than
he'd like to admit.

At the
same time, it's difficult to explain in words the nature of the
nonsensical, high-octane babble in which this is all conveyed,
particularly to those who've never seen a Miike film before. The
notorious auteur is clearly having fun making Zebraman 2, but
evidently he's also pitching it at fans first and foremost. Like the
original, the production is yet another loving tribute to (and parody
of) old tokusatsu television series with the usual riffs on
self-belief and heroism - it's just making use of a much bigger
budget.

The
thing is, beyond the obvious leap in scope and the improved special
effects, there's really not much here to give the impression Miike is
trying that hard to pull everything together. Zebraman 2 is little
more than an extended demo reel of sly, sometimes juvenile gags,
blatant tugging on the audiences' heartstrings and flashy setpieces -
which is frequently not a bad thing in and of itself but doesn't make
for great cinema, populist or otherwise.

It's an
entertaining ride, for those with some understanding of what they're
in for. Miike does put the money to relatively good use and the sheer
gleeful idiocy of many of his ideas makes them worth watching
regardless, like the giant tower announcing the start of Zebra Time
(five minutes every day where no law exists in Tokyo), Zebra Queen's
pop videos, the flashback revealing where Zebraman spent the past
fifteen years, the pyrotechnic climax...Miike clearly knows how
stupid the film is, too, with several gags sending it up and a cast
playing the material energetically straight.

Yet more
than two hours of this stuff in one long, breathless rush is more
than likely too much for all but the most devoted of the director's
followers. Past the opening flashback Miike starts as he means to go
on, in a blast of pop-art black and white. It barely lets up, yet
there's no context, nothing but the bare minimum of explanation, no
fleshing anyone out, no real emotion of any kind. Obviously lengthy
heart-to-hearts or philosophical debate in a lunatic superhero parody
aren't strictly necessary, but some hint of actual humanity or
meaning would have been nice, and no such thing ever comes.

And the
final damning blow is, while other directors frequently can't match
his second-rate output... Miike's already parodied low-rent Japanese
pop culture while successfully throwing in both his typical madness
and some truly heartbreaking emotional asides. The Great Yokai War
comfortably eclipses Zebraman 2 in every respect besides the budget;
it's funnier, more inventive, stranger and the final shot is an
utterly devastating sucker-punch to the gut this film doesn't begin
to live up to.

Zebraman
2 can still be cautiously recommended. It's Takashi Miike, and there
are things here - as with just about all of his films - the like
of which you will almost certainly not have seen from any other
director. But it's definitely one of his also-rans, where Miike
himself has pretty much already used every theme to far greater
effect, and unless you have a thing for equine superheroes, taken as
a whole the movie is ultimately forgettable.

I doubt anyone who didn't like the first Zebraman would care much for this. It really is pretty much exactly the same thing but bigger in every way; glossier, louder, sillier. I sort of enjoyed the original - like I said, I think nearly everything Miike does has something worth watching in there somewhere - but I didn't think it was much of a coherent film. Never felt the urge to watch it again. I doubt I'll be watching this a second time any time soon, either.

ChevalierAguila
•
November 24, 2010 10:25 PM

The first Zebraman is a fun but flawed affair, so no sir, you are wrong.

doceirias
•
November 25, 2010 12:01 AM

Fun but flawed pretty much sums up the review above. Kudo Kankuro's a great writer, but he and Miike don't really seem to work well together. (Did he even come back for the sequel?)
The Zebraman manga ('adaption', but it shares only the concept) is actually pretty good, but the first movie was one of Miike's weaker big films at the time.

Ard Vijn
•
November 25, 2010 10:44 AM

I loved the first Zebraman and it had me laughing from beginning till end, so I'm curious how the second film will hit me...